


On the Shoulders of Gas Giants

by shakespearespaz



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Science, Time Travel, also not tagging it yaz/thirteen but i ship that so it's still there, but this is also doctor 'the moon is an egg' who, i'm winging it here, i've decided that thirteen is my science lady, in the subtext hopefully if i have any skill, so be kind, so go with it, there are probably gonna be plot holes in later chapters, this science in this is not wholly disconnected from reality, what is time and how do you write about it i dunno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-01 06:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16759660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: The TARDIS team/gang/fam goes on an adventure feat. diamonds, flying cars, coffee, magnetospheres, and more.





	1. act i

The Doctor passed out sunglasses, before taking a seat on the edge of the TARDIS, legs dangling over the swirling clouds below.

“We should be passing over it any moment, so get cozy.” She twisted her head up to her friends. “Sure you don’t want to squeeze in here, Ryan? Graham?”

They shook their heads, Ryan steadying himself against the door but remaining defiantly upright.

“I’ll join you.”

“Right on,” the Doctor said, as Yaz shuffled down next to her, “Now, just don’t fall, since pressure up here: fine. Pressure down there: not so much.”

“Well,” Graham added, “You said you needed pressure to make—there! I see one!”

He was right, his outstretched arm indicating a flash of light. The flash was well above the TARDIS, but within moments it was already far beneath them. Never the matter, for there were more to come.

The diamonds fell like a sparkling rain.

They appeared out of the dense blue cloud as if emerging from nothing, continuing their trajectory until they disappeared into nothing again. Light far within this ice giant was dim, but the diamonds seemed to pick up and magnify every ray, illuminating the scene with gentle glows and brilliant, brief flashes.

As the TARDIS and its passengers gently moved, the flowing, falling diamonds did as well, some angled, some falling near horizontal. Deeper in, they convected, larger whirls getting caught up in little eddies.

The Doctor tore her eyes away to watch her friends. Graham’s eyes were fixated on the spectacle, his mouth only slightly ajar. Ryan’s dark eyes flitted from area to another, entranced. And finally, there was Yaz, with a smile taking up her whole face, almost as brilliant as the view before them.

“It’s amazing,” she breathed, “How is it happening?”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked! This far into this gaseous giant—or technically ice giant, since it’s primarily composed of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium—there’s a lot of stuff above us, so a lot of pressure. Those heavy elements want to bond to form larger fancy molecules. If you remember methane—”

“Our good friend CH4!”

“A plus, Yaz! She’s got more points than you lot right now.” She made a mock stern face at Ryan and Graham behind her.

“We’ve got methane—also other hydrocarbons—but mostly methane. But here we’re deep enough that the elements in methane can separate, and head off to do their own thing. Now, what are diamonds?”

Ryan’s face lit up. “Wait, I know this! Carbon. Same as the stuff in a pencil, which is absolutely wild.”

“Exactly!” The Doctor turned her proud eyes from Ryan back to the view, leaning against the door to the TARDIS and leaning out, closer to the science. “Same element. Different configurations. Soft enough in one form to have its bonds broken by paper. Strong enough in another to be, well, the strongest stuff we know.”

She wondered over that.

“And here, inside this gas planet, the pressure is high enough to smush that carbon into diamonds?” Graham finished.

“Precisely. Excellent use of the word _smush,_ by the way. One of my favorites.”

“Can we touch it?” Yaz asked.

“Always a great question,” the Doctor replied, throwing her hand back behind her, “Hey, Ryan, Graham, could one of you grab the grabby thing?”

“Grabby thing?” Ryan repeated. He was confused until he saw it, leaning in a corner by the door. It was indeed a thing for grabbing things. He swore it’d never been there before.

“I brought it out of storage. Never know when you’re going to need to grab things!”

Once the grabber, with its long handle and claw-like mechanism, was in her hand, she did not hesitate before she stuck it into the diamond fall in front of them. Yaz wrapped a hand around her the back of her braces, as the Doctor leaned enthusiastically out of the TARDIS.

“It’s fine,” she reassured, lunging forward, “She won’t let me fall!”

“I don’t know if she’s talking about Yaz or the TARDIS,” Graham said to Ryan, which got a chuckle so soft Graham thought he imagined it.

“Got one!”

Yaz helped pull her back in. She passed the hefty stone around.

“Uncut, probably what you would call industrial grade. But freshly forged in the fiery mantle of the ice giant Tytus.”

“Whoa,” Ryan said, weighing it in his hand.

Graham nodded at it. “That’s a lot of hours in the warehouse.”

“Right?”

“Can I see?” Yaz twisted around, and Ryan finally parted with it.

She looked at it closely, running her fingers along the rough edges, still marveling at its ability to catch the light.

“It’s beautiful. You positive it’s a diamond?”

“Let me see.”

Yaz offered it to her, but instead of taking the rock, the Doctor simply leaned over and licked it.

“Tastes like carbon to me.”

She missed the look on Yaz’s face, but the Doctor could barely contain her joy as she watched her friends soak it all in—the scene before them, the gem, the company.

Yaz held up the diamond. “Should I put it back? Messing with the timeline and natural order of the universe and all that…”

The Doctor shook her head. “Nah. One shouldn’t hurt.”

Yaz took a final look before sliding it into her pocket.

The ground was vibrating. No, not the ground, the TARDIS. It started subtly, graduating quickly to shaking. Within moments Ryan and Graham found standing a challenge, as the once stable floor listed to their left.

“What’d you do, Yaz?” Ryan joked.

The TARDIS lurched again, displeased. With the next movement, the Doctor rolled backward, finding her feet but fighting to keep her balance.

“Alright, back inside, all of you!”

The TARDIS let her fumble her way to the console. Graham and Ryan followed, slightly more gracefully then the Doctor. Graham didn’t waste any time.

“What’s out there, Doc?”

“Working on that, Graham.”

She was getting too many readings and also not enough, the results contradicting wildly. She leaned in literally for a closer look, bracing herself as they tilted again. Her hand caught the lever she was looking for, but her fight against gravity meant that she yanked it a bit violently, the clang echoing through the timeship.

Ryan and Graham jolted, startled.

“Sorry, love,” she apologized.

“We’re fine,” Graham replied.

She looked up, her face inches from the console. “Oh, wasn’t talking to you. But good to know!”

“Doctor!” Yaz was still the door. “You should come see this.”

The Doctor flung herself back towards the door, her pace somewhere between a hasty walk and outright run, her path a wobbly line against the shifting floor.

“Yaz, Yaz, Yaz.” She played with the name on her tongue as she moved. “What is it?”

Yaz pointed out of the TARDIS, high in the whirling cloud, near where the diamonds were becoming visible.

“Is that a…”

“..ship,” the Doctor finished for her.

It was. A dark shape emerged from the clouds above them, much like the diamonds that still fell. As its rough edges became more defined through the haze, a few more qualities became apparent. It was massive, industrial, and most definitely getting closer.

“But you said this system isn’t inhabited yet,” Yaz pointed out.

“And it shouldn’t be for another few million years. No, that doesn’t make sense.” She whipped around to head back inside. “There’s no one in this region that’s capable of interstellar flight for at least another three, four millennia at least. That’s why we came here now, so we weren’t in anyone’s way. I hate being in people’s way.”

“Do you?” Graham asked.

“Well, I will if I have to.”

“Doc!”

“Doctor?”

She stopped, halfway between the door and the console. The floor had stabilized, and Ryan and Yaz had spoken at the same time.

“One at a time! Yaz?”

“The ship just disappeared.”

The Doctor frowned. “Okay, then. Right. Ryan?”

“There’s a red, blinky light that wasn’t going off before. Just wanted to make sure we’re not going to explode or something.”

The Doctor considered both, before bounding towards Ryan.

“Sorry, Yaz. Gotta see what the light is. Keep an eye on the skies. You’re doing great!”

She recognized the indicator light, but couldn’t quite place it. She hoped running her hand over it and down to the panel below would prompt her memory.

“Oh! Energy!” she exclaimed, “Well, one particular energy signature. Seen it before. Quite a lot actually.”

The Doctor looked to Yaz at the door, then back to Ryan by the console, and to Graham propped against a pillar, and then back to Yaz. The pieces clicked into place.

“Yaz! I know why the ship disappeared! And why it was here in the first place!”

Graham shifted his position. “You going to share with the class?”

“It travelled through time! Like us! Don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. Fairly obvious now. Still, got there eventually.”

She swung to the other side of the console, her foot finding the appropriate pedal. A biscuit slid down.

“And that deserves a treat! Alright.” She straightened and looked around at her friends. “Who wants to find out where that ship came from? I’ve got the energy signature right here. Shouldn’t be too hard to follow it.”

She stuck one hand in the air, biscuit still clutched in the other.

“Raise your hand for yay.”

Yaz raised her hand instantly.

Ryan simply said, “Sure.”

Graham took a deep breath and put his hand near his shoulder. “What have we got to lose?”

“Let’s go!” She shoved the biscuit in her mouth and went to work.

Yaz swung the door shut and hastened to the Doctor’s side at the console. She was not there for long. The floor tilted as the TARDIS begun its journey, and even though Yaz widened her stance, it was too late to stop her from sliding the opposite direction.

“Whoops.” The Doctor held on and stretched forward to reach the next dial.

“Doctor,” Yaz said, scrambling back to her, “What if you didn’t try to eat and pilot at the same time?”

“No, no,” she replied, hitting the pedal to deliver another biscuit, “I got this.”

Another list, this time the other direction. Yaz slid into the Doctor, with only the console stopping them. As they straightened, the Doctor took another step towards the treat dispenser. Yaz blocked her path.

“Yaz!”

“I’m cutting you off! Drive the ship!”

The Doctor made some unintelligible noises of protest but turned back and continued the pursuit. Three slightly less violent lurches later, the TARDIS steadied. The Doctor stepped back from her controls as the ship quieted. She pulled a sad face at Yaz.

“Hey, I will not be manipulated by that…face! I take distracted driving very seriously,” Yaz lectured, “Besides, you consume far too much sugar.”

“My physiology is different than yours,” the Doctor replied, “I’m known for my ability to multitask.”

She shuffled around Yaz to collect one final biscuit.

“And to metabolize sugar.”

“Sure.”

“If you two are done,” Ryan said, “Should we see what’s out there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The series just ended and already I want more, so I'm going to entertain myself by writing my own adventures with Team TARDIS. This one should be continued shortly as I edit and finish up the rest of the chapters!


	2. act ii

“It’s…” Ryan struggled to describe the scene in front of him.

“Kinda ugly.”

“Graham!” the Doctor chastised.

“Then come over here.”

Yaz had gone around the other side of the TARDIS. The other three joined her.

Before them rose Tytus the ice giant in all its teal glory. It dominated the horizon of the small moon they stood on, blinding at first. As their eyes adjusted, different colors appeared in the smooth, shifting surface: lighter blues, whites, even a hint of deep violet. Then, there was an interruption, shadows, between them and the planet.

“Doctor, that silhouette,” Yaz asked, “It’s familiar, isn’t it?”

“It’s our friends from the diamond storm!”

“You said there was just one back there though,” Ryan stated.

He was right. Along the horizon there were not only multiple ships, but hundreds, and more seemed to appear the longer they stood there. Many were in motion, some flying overhead, some in the distance, and some already on the ground, docked along what appeared to be a shipyard kilometers away and stretching for kilometers.

“They look like tankers,” Graham suggested.

“You think they were mining the diamonds?” Ryan asked.

The Doctor watched the activity between them, the tankers docking. She followed the pipelines that she could make out from this distance, following them as they disappeared over the horizon.

“It’s kinda dim, isn’t it, Doctor?” Yaz asked.

The Doctor turned to take in the structure they were on. Streetlights were above them, cold and harsh, but Tytus was still the brightest thing in the sky. It illuminated a concrete world around them, filled with mostly ships. Many of the ships were small, resembling cars, but a few were larger, closer to bus-sized. The Doctor moved towards the edge and the view.

“Definitely industrial. Doesn’t look like a diamond mining operation though. It is rather grim. No plants. Huh. Oh, why can’t I remember anything specific about this system!” She looked to her friends.

Graham shrugged. “Can’t help you there.”

“The moons were colonized? Why were the moons colonized? Who’s here?”

Someone cleared their throat behind them. All four jumped at the sound, before turning to find a small figure with short red hair behind them.

“Excuse me. You’re…uh…blocking my spot.”

The Doctor remembered her manners.

“Oh hello! Are you from here? Silly question, you must be. But one quick one from us: where is here?”

The young woman simply stared.

“Well, here _here_ is the…parking lot.”

“Parking lot? Car park! Well, ship park. Ship park for what?”

“UMU?” When they returned her blank stare, she continued, “United Moon Utilities? Are you folks alright?”

“We’re fine. Just new to this system. We’re travelers.”

The girl bit her lower lip. “Yeah, well, not many tourists end up here.”

“You wanna show us around? You could take us to your top ten places! Oh, I love a personal touch when sightseeing.”

“I really have to go, or I’ll be late to pick up my sister.”

She pushed past them, fishing keys out of her bag. Her vehicle—a version of a second-hand flying car—was parked directly behind the TARDIS.

“If you don’t mind moving your ugly box out of the way….”

“Hey, she’s not ugly,” Graham defended, “And can’t you just go around it with your ship?”

“No, the thrusters that provide lift are wonky,” she sighed, “Won’t work till I run the engine a bit. It sucks, but I can still drive on surface and low altitude streets until I fix—why am I telling you this?”

“So, what…” Yaz asked, “Your flying car doesn’t fly?”

She ignored the question, opened the hatch to her ship-slash-car and got in. In one motion she stuck her keys in the ignition and started it. The engine sputtered multiple times, before dying completely. Their new friend let out a guttural cry and leaned back in her seat.

“Need a lift?” The Doctor’s face was at the door. “We can give you one if you show us maybe _two_ of your top ten sights.”

The woman groaned, but got out of the ship. She was out of options.

\--

They materialized in suburbia, a rows of townhomes stretching up and down the hill, each painted a different color with a brilliantly clashing front door.

“Your piloting skills need work,” the girl said, as they exited.

“Hey, she’s new,” The Doctor said, running her hand along the blue paint of the TARDIS, “Well, new controls at least.”

“How do you know about piloting?” Yaz asked.

The woman shrugged. “It’s what I do at UMU. Thanks for the lift.”

She started up the path towards the yellow front door. The Doctor wasn’t letting her get away that easily, matching pace with her as they approached the door.

“Wait, wait. We didn’t even get your name. Can’t have a friend without a name.”

“I’m not a friend.”

The Doctor jaw dropped. “Yes, you are.”

The girl sighed and turned. “Aimee. You happy now?”

“No. What is United Moon Utilities? What do they do?”

“Google it and leave me alone.”

“You have google?” Graham asked, “Wait, where and when are we again?”

Aimee froze when she reached the doormat, the four individuals following her coming to a sudden halt as well.

“What is it?” The Doctor leaned around her to see.

Her front door was open. Not wide open, just a few centimeters, like it hadn’t latched properly.

“Oh, shit, no,” Aimee said, before barreling inside.

“Aimee, no!” Yaz said, before turning to the Doctor, “We don’t know who or what’s in there!”

“Right, we have to help, come on!” The Doctor was the next through the door.

“Doctor, no! Not what I meant!” Yaz was right behind her.

Ryan turned to Graham. “Why do creepy things always happen in the suburbs?”

They followed Aimee, the Doctor, and Yaz through the front door. Aimee was already upstairs, barreling through the house, shouting. Yaz and the Doctor had made it as far as the living room, which showed the usual signs of a space lived in by slightly messy inhabitants but nothing too worrying or out of place. The sliding back door was open as well, and the Doctor moved to investigate. Aimee’s footsteps pounded above them.

The Doctor pushed the curtain aside, slid the door open a little more, and stuck her head out. Outside it was still, no breeze, just the dull light from Tytus beating down. The yard was small, fenced in, with no grass or plants, just some gravel. The figure was so motionless as well that the Doctor almost missed her.

Sitting on a chair on the patio was a young girl, wearing sunglasses, and reading a book.

“Paige!”

The sliding door and the Doctor were pushed violently aside, as Aimee made her way out the door and onto the patio.

“I told you to wait at school for me!”

“Calm down, Aimee,” the child said without looking up from her book, “I can walk home just fine. It’s not even a kilometer.”

Aimee collected the book from her.

“That doesn’t mean it’s safe, and it doesn’t mean that I know where you are, or that seeing the front door open won’t make me panic—”

“Well, maybe just don’t panic…have you tried that?”

Aimee moved to shoo her out of the chair.

“Yes, tiny Schubs, I have, now back inside! And give me back my sunglasses! Those are Bay Rans!”

“You brought people!”

The child stood at the door, staring at the four strangers in her living room. The Doctor gave a small wave.

“Hi, we’re Aimee’s friends.”

Paige studied them, unsure but not afraid.

“That can’t be right. Aimee doesn’t have friends. She has a laptop and that stupid ship of hers.”

“Well,” the Doctor said, “She’s got us, now. Right, Aimee?”

Aimee crossed her arms in that familiar stance they had found her in.

“Listen, I really don’t have time—”

“She has a date with her laptop,” Paige interrupted.

“Paige, shut up!”

“You’re not supposed to talk to me like that! I’m a child!”

Ryan suppressed a laugh at that. “I like her.”

“Well,” the Doctor cut it, “If you don’t have time to show us around, maybe Paige could! Where are your favorite places, Paige?”

Yaz moved closer to the Doctor, speaking in a low voice. “Aren’t we supposed to be finding out about that ship and docks, not sightseeing?”

“Those readings led us right to Aimee. I feel like whatever we’re supposed to find out, we’re on the right path.”

Yaz had a lot more to contest concerning their current plan of action, but she let the Doctor lead the way.

“Listen, Aimee. I know we’re disrupted your afternoon, but Paige is fine, and already picked herself up from school, look at that! It’s looking to be beautiful afternoon with not a cloud in the sky and not a drop of rain—”

“What’s rain?” Paige asked, but Aimee shook her head to quiet her.

“You have Google but no rain?” Graham asked.

The Doctor ignored them and continued. “Why don’t you show us around, tell us about this moon that you call home, and then we promise we’ll leave you in peace. Besides, we did give you a lift, so…”

Paige twisted her head to Aimee with wide, pleading eyes.

“Please, they don’t seem boring, and I wanna know what rain is.”

Aimee sighed, knowing she was losing her second battle of the day. “Fine, I could use some caffeine. Stop one: bopa shop.”

\--

“Oh, it’s a coffee shop,” Yaz said.

The shop had multiple levels, with plenty of place to sit and work and a large fire roaring in a massive stone fireplace. It wasn’t too busy and had that low murmur of subdued, scattered conversations.

“It looks quite nice,” Graham said, “Cozy, although it is also perfect room temperature outside.”

“It’s not very exotic, is it?” Ryan said.

“Ryan!” The Doctor turned back to him. “We’re experiencing a hallowed alien custom. Bopa!”

“Yeah, it’s a coffee shop.”

Aimee and Paige returned, mugs of bopa in hand. Aimee shuffled her gawking tourists to a large table in the corner near the fire.

“Thank you, Aimee, my new friend,” the Doctor said earnestly, “We’d pay but, um, all I’ve got in my pockets are some really cool rocks I picked up on Hunter VI and a map of Gaios’ self-flying shuttle system.”

“Pay?” She frowned, taking a deep sip of her bopa.

“They don’t have money either?” Graham asked the Doctor, “Now that’s weird.”

“Hey, we Time Lords don’t have money.”

“Or maybe you could say time _is_ money,” Yaz joked.

“Oh, Yaz! I like that a lot! That’s a good one!”

Aimee turned to share her confusion to her sister, who was diving into her adult sized cup of bopa.

“Anything they say make sense to you, tiny Schubs?”

Paige shook her head. “I don’t know where you found them.”

“What’s a tiny Schubs?” Yaz asked.

“Mani Schubert?” Aimee replied, “The genius who figured out the Schubert method?”

All four of her guests shook their heads, almost in unison.

“Well, I call her tiny Schubs because she’s too smart for her age. Little annoying genius.”

“Hah! You admit it!” Paige’s fists shot into the air, triumphant.

The Doctor smiled along. “That’s great! I love that!”

With the caffeine in her system and her sister safe by her side, Aimee seemed much more at peace than when they first stumbled upon her. She leaned forward across the table.

“So your ship, what’s the range on that? Such a unique design. I mean, I’m a bit of ship geek myself, but I’ve never seen dimensional folding but in practice. In theory, yes, but not in reality!”

“Her, uh, range is really…um…far,” the Doctor answered, very technically.

“Far enough that you’ve never heard of UMU?”

“Well, yeah. What is it?”

“UMU?”

The Doctor nodded.

“United Moon Utilities. They’re well, everything. They provide energy, which lets us live here, as well as on the other moons in the torus. We have the main processing plant though, which supports most of our jobs. They provide for us.”

“Pardon me for asking,” interrupted Ryan, “Why do you work, if they don’t pay you?”

Aimee furrowed her brown, as she had trouble processing the question. “Everyone who is able to works. We need energy, otherwise our homes, our schools, our community wouldn’t function.”

“But what about your ship,” Yaz asked, “Why don’t you fix it if money’s not the issue?”

“We don’t have endless resources. I have a request in for parts, but it will probably be another few cycles before it’s my turn.”

“Huh.”

Graham asked his question. “What’s the torus?”

“It surrounds us, but yeah, I don’t really know,” Aimee admitted, “Engineering is more my thing. Anyone else able to explain it?”

The Doctor and Paige raised their hands at the same time. Paige looked to the Doctor who enthusiastically nodded at her to go ahead. Paige pushed her mug to the center of the table.

“This is Tytus. Our own ice giant.”

“Beautiful,” the Doctor encouraged.

“It’s surrounded by a magnetosphere, generated deep inside it. This magnetosphere is invisible. But it interacts with space…stuff. What’s it called?”

“Solar wind, solar radiation, and a whole host of other stuff,” provided the Doctor, pride and joy in her eyes.

“Yeah, charged particles. The magnetosphere interacts with those particles and the particles spewed from Tytus’ moons. Like from Gegon’s geysers. Creating…”

She reached over, grabbed a packet of what looked like sugar, tore it open, and dumped the white grains in a circle around the mug.

“A ring of plasma and gas. The torus!”

The Doctor couldn’t help but jump in.

“Which provides oxygen, protection from radiation, and other things that make life possible here! A little donut in which moons orbit, perfect for life.”

Aimee rejoined the conversation. “I know that when humans first colonized here we needed to do other things, like heat the surface, hence the reason UMU was so important.”

The Doctor turned back to the fam, finally getting it. “I knew it had to be humans who colonized. That explains Google!”

“But now,” Paige said, folding her hands on the table in front her, “That we explained our torus to you. What is rain?”

The Doctor motioned to her friends. “One of you want to take this one?”

Ryan spoke up. “It’s like when water…falls from the sky.”

He expected confusion, to have to think all the way back to his meager earth science education to remember whatever he could about weather.

Instead, Paige’s eyes lit up.

“Like The Green Place!”

\--

The Green Place was a greenhouse, the size of multiple city blocks. Twisted, recycled metal had been fashioned into a sign that hung over the door. Inside was the greenery so eerily absent from the landscape outside. Plants from across the galaxy crowded together, draping the walls and spilling over balconies, clustered around small ponds and rock formations. In the light made even dimmer by the windows, the fam recognized many species from Earth, but some eluded recognition even from the Doctor.

A light mist toppled from the ceiling, much like rain without the clouds.

The Doctor walked ahead with Aimee. Behind, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham listened as Paige explained her favorite plants and their relationship to each other in this wholly unique, man-made, self-contained ecosystem.

“If you don’t mind me asking, where are your parents?” the Doctor asked gently. Aimee couldn’t be out of her teens yet, and even for this strange, familiar world that seemed odd.

“They’re gone. For about five cycles now.”

“And you’re by yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“And there was no one else?”

Aimee shook her head. “Our parents came alone. They left the rest of their family behind to come here. UMU is alright, though. I was old enough to assume responsibility for Paige, and they provided for me.”

The Doctor stopped, hands in pockets, and looked back at Paige smacking Ryan with a fern. She looked back to Aimee.

“I hope you know just how special you two are. Truly.”

Aimee shrugged. “Not really. I’m just someone who spends too much time watching how to videos on patching up ship engines. Paige, though, she’s something else. Annoying as heck most days, but I wouldn’t change anything about her.”

The Doctor smiled sadly.

“You make me miss my family.”

She let that comment slip before she could truly process what she meant. Luckily, she was soon distracted.

“Oh, a Lucian rat trap!”

The Doctor bounced over to a tall plant with wide leaves streaked with purple.

“I’ve never seen one of these before!” She ran her finger down the stalk with the lightest touch, marveling at the sensation of all the small hairs that covered it against her skin. “It’s so soft! So deceptive until you become its dinner!”

She pulled her hand back as it lurched forward and its mouth sprung open. Yaz was there quickly, moving between the Doctor and the plant.

“Doctor, I love you, but could you have like 8% more impulse control? For all our sakes.”

Aimee smiled and laughed at that. “If you manage to get her to do that, could you let Paige know as well?”

Yaz nodded with knowing smile.

“Oh, Aimee! I’ve been meaning to ask.”

The Doctor skipped forward a few steps and turned back to face Aimee, Paige, and the gang.

“What does a bopa plant look like? I’ve known coffee and its relatives across many systems, and some are actually beans, whereas some aren’t. Or maybe you know, Paige?”

Paige looked at her blankly.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” said Yaz, “a _what_?”

“Bopa plant. You know, delicious purple, caffeinated liquid we just had crowded around fire talking gas tori?”

Ryan and Graham shook their heads.

“Is this one of those references you make where you just expect us to know?” Ryan asked, “Your experiences aren’t universal, mate.”

The Doctor stepped closer to Aimee, finding the girl’s green eyes.

“Aimee, come on, you live off bopa. You told us just moments ago that you refuse to talk to anyone before you’ve had at least three cups.”

Aimee shook her head slowly, and the Doctor could read the apprehension creeping into the face that just moments ago was smiling and laughing.

“No, Doctor. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”


	3. act iii

The Doctor wasn't panicking. There was no real reason yet. But that didn’t mean she could ignore the anxiety surreptitiously taking up residence in her gut, whispering that something here was wrong. If she knew what, she could fix it, but until then, this mystery unnerved rather than excited her.

Yaz stepped forward as the Doctor stood there, processing.

“You alright?”

She was closely followed by Graham.

“Hey, Doc, no shame if we need to cut sightseeing short and take it easy today.”

“Take it easy?” she responded. A smile that masked her growing uneasiness crept onto her face. “I don’t take it easy, Graham. And I’m fine. Something here is odd.”

She turned to pace it out, letting her fingertips drift over the greenery along the path. She thought out loud.

“What do we have? What appears to be short term memory loss in everyone…except me. Unless, it’s me that’s the odd one. No, it’s not, I can still taste bopa on my tongue. It definitely happened.”

She turned to find her friends only a few steps behind.

“Oh! I know! We’re in a huge garden filled with plant species from all over. Pollen! Specifically pollen that is making all of you forget what just happened moments ago. Makes sense. Me, Time Lord, different physiology, not affected. Okay, test.”

Yaz looked skeptical, but listened intently.

“How did we get here, team?”

Graham stated the obvious. “We were in Tytus. Diamonds, mysterious ship, terrible piloting, bam, ship park.”

The Doctor clapped her hands together. “Great, awesome, we’re in agreement on that. Where were we twenty minutes ago?”

“At Aimee’s house.”

The Doctor imitated a buzzer. “Incorrect. We were at the bopa shop, getting caffeinated.”

“Still don’t know what a bopa is,” said Ryan.

“Says you,” Yaz told the Doctor.

“What?”

“ _You_ say we were at this shop. The rest of us disagree.”

“But…UMU. United Moon Utilities. The torus. That’s where we learned all about what Aimee does.”

“We did all that at my house,” Aimee clarified, “You asked about UMU were, and I told you all about me piloting the methane tankers for them—”

The Doctor leaned forward, her hands finding Aimee’s arms.

“Methane?”

“Yes? We collect it for—”

“Energy! You mentioned the energy but not the methane.”

The Doctor released her and stumbled back a few steps.

“I need to see something.”

She left, the glass door to The Green Place with its intricate ironwork clinking shut behind her.

\--

Yaz, Ryan, and Graham found her standing on the sidewalk, gazing across the street, hands on her hips, face in a scrunch.

“Doctor…” Yaz said, slightly out of breath.

“Where did it go?”

“What?”

“The coffee shop—the bopa shop. It was right there.”

She pointed at the abandoned building across the way, with boarded windows and no light from inside.

“Doc,” Graham said gently, “We’ve never been here before.”

“Something is….something is happening.” She twisted her head to the side, as if she could sort the thoughts in her brain simply by reorienting them in space. “It’s not pollen. I feel fine. Absolutely fine. No headache, nothing. Absolute clarity.”

She turned back to her friends.

“How can this be?” Then in a quieter voice, less sure: “You believe me, right?”

“Of course, we believe you,” Yaz said, “We’ll figure this out.”

The Doctor nodded solemnly. The sound of Aimee and Paige catching up echoed on the pavement behind them.

“Sorry for running out on you,” the Doctor apologized.

Aimee shook her head. “It’s fine. Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Yeah, I need to think…I need somewhere that’s good—oh! Do you know a playground?”

Paige nodded and took the Doctor by the hand.

“I’ve got you.”

\--

The playground was near the Green Place—wood chips and swings and a slide. The Doctor sat on one swing, swaying gently back and forth, Paige on the other. They talked excitedly as they moved opposite each other in their trajectories.

Yaz, Graham, and Ryan stood at the edges with Aimee.

“Has there ever been a shop there?” Yaz asked her.

Aimee shook her head.

“Listen,” Ryan said to Aimee, “I know she’s odd, but she’s not usually wrong.”

Graham nodded. “We trust her.”

“Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming?” said Aimee.

“This has never happened before,” Ryan explained, “Her saying something that contradicts what we can see. Talking about things that don’t exist and acting like we should know.”

Aimee glanced over at her sister and the Doctor.

“How long have you known her?”

“Not long,” Graham answered, “Only a short while, and she’s had loads of lives before us.”

“Should I be worried?” Aimee said, “Should we be thinking about calling some help for her?”

“No.” Yaz’s response was aggressive and firm. “We are not doubting her. It’s a coffee shop. There’s always more going on than we think and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. She taught us not to be afraid of things we don’t understand. Just because we don’t know why she remembers something that we don’t, it isn’t something to fear. Not yet.”

Graham and Ryan nodded. Yaz was right; they’d stared down much worse with their Doctor. The Doctor, meanwhile, still couldn’t make sense of it.

“Can you help me lay out the facts?” she asked Paige.

Paige nodded, and they propelled themselves out of the swings, boots landing firmly in unison in the wood chips.

“Alright, where did this start, young lady?”

“Tytus,” Paige replied.

“Tytus…” The Doctor repeated, squatting down to write the name and draw a circle in the woodchips, “We were in the diamond storm.”

“Tytus is famous for them.” Paige knelt and drew a diamond alongside the circle.

“Then, we saw a ship. A tanker,” the Doctor said.

Paige drew her best attempt at a ship.

“Carrying methane.”

Paige mapped out a few more lines.

“Skeletal formula of methane. Nice!”

“You met Aimee at UMU,” Paige continued for her. Those initials were added as well. “Oh, and the torus and our moon!”

The Doctor reached over and drew a donut shape.

“But then, we split.” She looked at Paige. “You really don’t remember bopa?”

Paige shook her head sadly and stood.

“Ah, well, it was worth a shot.”

The Doctor returned to drawing. She traced a split, for the two contrasting memories, one of which had a steaming mug of bopa, the other which didn’t. They both led to a flower for the greenhouse. She stood, hands on hips, looking at the collection of shapes and words before her.

“There’s an inkling,” the Doctor thought out loud, “They all fit together somehow, but it’s just…not quite working.” She held out her hands to visually block out different images, isolating pieces of the puzzle. “What are we missing, Paige? What did I forget?”

She turned to find Paige. The girl was gone.

The Doctor spun, a full circle to take in the playground, the street, the houses, her friends huddled on the edge. Still no Paige.

“Hey, fam!” she shouted at her group, “Where’d Paige go?”

She started towards them, but Aimee’s response stopped her.

“Who?”

The fear that she’d been swallowing boiled over. The Doctor was upon the group in seconds, urgency in her voice, her face, her hands as they moved emphatically with her words.

“The little girl who was just with me, Aimee. Paige. Your sister.”

“I don’t have a sister.”

The Doctor was not far from Aimee’s face, where she truly saw no hint of recognition.

“Yes, you do, and she was here seconds ago. Tiny Schubs?” Aimee shook her head, but the Doctor kept going. “Her name is Paige, you call her tiny Schubs, and it’s just you and her. You told me she was annoying as heck but absolutely brilliant and the best thing in your life and that, _that_ you did not forget—you _cannot_ forget.”

The Doctor moved her hand to Aimee’s shoulder, almost to verify that the girl herself was still real. Aimee shrunk away with a cold look. Yaz put herself between the two, catching the Doctor’s hand and removing it, gripping it tightly. 

“Doctor, whatever is happening, we’ll figure it out. But it is not Aimee’s fault.”

The Doctor found Yaz’s calm brown eyes, breathing in deeply as her friend held clutched her hand in hers.

“What is happening, Yaz?”

“I don’t know.”

“No,” the Doctor clarified, “What is literally happening. Tell me what’s happened the last few hours. What you remember.”

Yaz licked her lips and spoke. “We came here to this moon of Tytus. We met Aimee, she took us to a greenhouse. You started acting strangely, talking about coffee. Now you’re talking about a little girl who doesn’t exist.”

“Why did we come to this moon?” The Doctor interrogated rapidly.

Yaz frowned. “I dunno. Why do we go anywhere? You wanted to show it to us.”

“You don’t remember diamonds?”

“Diamonds? No?”

The Doctor pulled her hand away from Yaz.

“You’re not messing with me, are you? This isn’t a joke? Pull one over on the Doctor day?”

The Doctor laughed, hoping rather than expecting them to laugh along with her and put a stop to this. Yaz’s eyes flitted to Ryan and then to Graham. Graham stepped forward.

“I think we should go back to the TARDIS. I think it’s time to leave.”

The Doctor’s face fell. She spoke in a low voice.

“Do _not_ patronize me, Graham.”

Aimee looked between them, doubtful.

“I have people I can call, if she needs medical attention.”

“I’m doing just fine, Aimee," the Doctor snapped, a deep frustration breaking through that careful veneer of sunshine she wrapped around herself like armor, "It’s you who can’t remember your own sister.” 

“Doctor!”

Yaz’s voice cut thru the pain, the confusion, the dread, the way it always managed to. The Doctor found her gaze, those eyes pleading with her. Then, like the entire planets she’d seen shift into place, the eons that made sense in an instant, with a snap of a finger, the Doctor realized the piece of the puzzle she’d been missing.

“Time,” she said.

Her relief at her own comprehension lasted moments, before reality hit.

“I can’t explain,” she urged breathlessly to her team, “We literally don’t have the time, but I need all of you to get back to the TARDIS now. Wherever you last remember it being, it should be there. Go now!”

She turned to Aimee.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re probably very confused right now, but I will make this right. You just hang in there, and I will get you your sister back.”

The Doctor was in motion, boots pounding against the pavement, hearts pounding in her chest, as she made her way down the street. Her blue coat flapped behind her. The green of The Green Place was before her shortly, a humid port in the storm. Inside was eerily quiet, which only further confirmed her working hypothesis. The Doctor swung the door open. She walked the same path they trod before, with people who no longer existed. She stopped, scanning the levels, looking for whatever she could find hidden among the leaves.

“Doctor.”

Fear well and truly gripped her. She turned. Yaz had followed.

“Yaz, no, you need to go back—”

“Why? Will you explain yourself?”

“Yasmin Khan, if you do not go back to that TARDIS, right now, you may well find yourself written out of existence.”

Her authoritative voice almost worked. Yaz had plenty of experience with authority, though, and was not to be deterred that easily.

“Do you even know what is happening, Doctor?”

“Partly. More than you could. And that is not an insult, Yaz. You are one of the smartest people I know, but you are not a lord of time. You can’t help with this.”

“Try me.”

She strode defiantly, closing the space between them, matching the Doctor’s height. The Doctor wanted more than anything to keep her there, close, but the danger was too great.

“You are on the wrong side of time, Yaz. This timeline is literally rewriting itself with us in it. My very DNA is resisting that, holding onto the memories of the past timeline, but even I don’t know how long until _I_ forget.”

“Why is it rewriting itself?”

“I’m working on that.”

“Then let me help! Help me remember.”

“You cannot remember! No matter how much you want to!”

Yaz grabbed her hand again.

“You are not alone, Doctor. You do not have to figure this out this alone.”

There wasn’t time to argue, or time to consider, just Yaz’s pulse in her hand and her earnest eyes locked with hers.

“Reach into your pocket, Yaz.”

She did without hesitation, without looking. In her hand, between them, she held the diamond she’d pocketed earlier, the one she could not remember ever existing.

“Now that I should remember.” Yaz looked at the Doctor, who pleaded silently to let her go. Yaz would not release her hand. “I told you. I trust you. I’m not going anywhere. Now, why did you come back to The Green Place?”

There was no more time for delay, as the Doctor gave in.

“I thought the answer would be here. The first discrepancy between your timeline and my memories happened here.”

“But we barely spent any time here,” Yaz countered, “Unless we did, and I forgot?”

The Doctor shook her head.

“You didn’t forget. You’re right. We’d only just gotten here.”

“Where did we start?” Yaz said, “In the first timeline?”

“United Moon Utilities. The ship park. We were chasing a methane ship thru time.”

“I don’t remember methane,” Yaz said, “Or time travel?”

The Doctor straightened and released Yaz’s hand.

“That’s it!” she exclaimed, “Still buffering a little bit, but I’m like 87% there on solving this paradox.”

“And not a moment too soon.”

Yaz held her hand up, as the diamond slowly faded from existence, crumbling to dust blown away by an invisible wind into nothing. She was left standing there, hand empty, expression almost confused, but like she couldn’t remember what to be confused about.

“Doc—”

“The only thing you need to remember, Yasmin Khan, is that you’re brilliant. Now, we need to leave!”

The plants disintegrated into clouds of dusts at their heels as they fled The Green Place.


	4. act iv

Yaz led the way to the TARDIS, for the Doctor’s memories were of a reality that was rapidly fading from existence. They clamored through the door, Ryan and Graham turning at the sound of them entering. Aimee was with them at the center console.

Yaz preceded the Doctor, stepping in front of her before she could speak.

“Listen, I know we’ve been confused by the Doctor lately, but we need to listen to her. Something is happening with time, and the Doctor gets it, whereas we don’t. We need to trust her.”

She stared down her friends, old and recent, before stepping out of the way of the Doctor.

“Hey, team,” the Doctor addressed them, “Thanks for coming back here when I asked, even if you didn’t get why. Well, most of you…” She stole a glance at Yaz. “I don’t have a lot of time, but what you need to know is that time is literally changing.” She hopped forward towards the console, talking with her hands. “You remember a different timeline than I do, which explains the conflict we were having. Now, my timeline—the original one—is rapidly unravelling. Here, inside the TARDIS, we should be okay for the time being. It has protections against anomalies like this, so here you should be able to remember things that no longer exist outside those doors—like The Green Place.”

“The greenhouse?” asked Ryan.

‘Exactly,” said the Doctor. She looked past him, though, to Aimee. “Aimee, amazing pilot Aimee, whose sister we are going to get back. I have some questions, and I need quick, accurate answers.”

Aimee looked cautiously to Graham, whose slight nod comforted her.

“First, you collect methane for United Moon Utilities, correct?”

She nodded.

“Second, you mentioned Mani Schubert as UMU’s historic, acclaimed genius. What did Mani do that was so genius?”

“Easy, when faced with a shortage of methane to meet the demand of industries on Tytus’ moons, he came up with the simple, ingenious solution.”

“Which was?”

“Get it from the past.”

The Doctor pointed both fingers at Aimee. “Aha! Get it, from millions of years in the past, when no one was around to use it.”

“They can travel thru time?” Yaz asked.

“Yeah, not the first civilization to figure it out and certainly not the last.” The Doctor turned back to Aimee. “We saw one of the methane tankers make the time jump, which you lot can’t remember now. That’s how we originally found our way here.”

“So, they were messing around in time,” Ryan said, “How does that translate to everything disappearing?”

“That’s what I’ve been working on.” The Doctor indicated the console in the middle of room. “If the controls are Tytus, we—” She gestured at the five bodies standing scattered around it. “—are the moons, happy and healthy in our little plasma torus bubble, made possible by Tytus’ magnetic field.”

“Still not there, Doc,” Graham interjected.

“Now this, _this_ , is the key. Those diamonds, the movement of that beautiful, convecting, oscillating diamond rain, generates that magnetic field.”

“And you can’t get the diamonds without the methane,” Aimee finished, “Everyone learns _that_ in primary school. We’re literally making our own home nonexistent by collecting methane in the past.”

“If the plasma torus goes away before anyone colonizes those moons,” the Doctor continued, “Then no one _will_ colonize them, which means no communities, no United Moon Utilities, and no Aimee or Paige.”

The interconnectedness of it all struck the Doctor, uplifting her despite the stakes. This was one of those moments when she felt the most alive, the tapestry of the universe and all its pieces big and small stretching out infinitely before her. Tug on one string and you could change the whole picture. It’s been one of the things at academy she hadn’t been half bad at. There was something innate about all these billions of threads interwoven, dependent, and ever changing.

“Why now, though?” Yaz asked, “Was it something we did?”

The Doctor hesitated, guilt that was too familiar seizing at her. Before she could answer, Aimee did.

“No. It wasn’t you.” She ran her hand through her short hair, thinking it thru. “Not many people know this, but UMU hasn’t been sustainable. The amount of energy it takes to travel to the past—we barely make it up in the fuel that we bring back. So, we were told to bring back more, more than our calculations said would be okay.”

“At least you did the calculations,” the Doctor said, “Empires have collapsed for less.”

Aimee shook her head violently, squeezing her eye shut. When she opened them, they glistened in the low light of the TARDIS.

“I just—I just did what I was told. I’m a pilot, that’s all. I acted like I trusted them even though somewhere deep down I _knew_. I knew we could live with less fuel, but said nothing. I did nothing. I’m-I’m responsible.”

The Doctor was in front of her, level with her. Her hands found the girl’s shoulders, and she comforted with that knowing smile and wide, accessible eyes.

“Aimee, this is not your fault. You cannot take the failings of an entire society onto your small shoulders. It’s enough that you took on your sister, even though you can’t remember that. You cannot help by tearing yourself down. We all have moments where we wish we’d done more, been more. They cannot crush you.”

“Then tell me there’s some way to help them, Doctor,” she insisted, “Some way to save them. I know it doesn’t look like much, but that’s the only place I’ve ever known. That’s my home, my community. I have family out there, family that I can’t even remember. Even if this isn’t my fault, I have to right this. No one else can. This moment is on me.”

The Doctor opened her mouth, but no sound came out. There had to be a solution, something other than quietly letting the moons fade from existence, leaving behind a sole survivor with a broken life she barely remembered. No.

“I need to do some calculations.”

The Doctor grabbed Aimee by the hand.

“Can you remember specific numbers for UMU’s operations?”

Aimee nodded.

“Yaz, slate!”

Yaz knew where to find the slate and chalk and delivered it to the Doctor. The Doctor sunk to the floor, pulling Aimee down with her. She sat cross-legged on the TARDIS floor, chalk at the ready.

“Okay, to start I need the carrying capacity of a standard time-travelling methane tanker, an estimate on the total amount of methane collected by UMU in the last five years, and the amount of methane used on each trip to the past.”

She listened as Aimee gave her the figures, and then some more, and finally one last batch. The Doctor took a few seconds to etch out some chicken scratches on the slate, the chalk squeaking as she dived into her mathematics. She stopped. She looked up into Aimee’s curious, worried face.

“Four.”

“What?”

“We need to disrupt four tankers to right things. In theory.” The Doctor held up the board for a moment before passing it onto Aimee for her inspection.

“How do you know that will work?” Ryan asked.

“Like Aimee said, their operation was barely sustainable. We just need to break the cycle. Take four tankers of methane out of the equation, and they won’t be able to get enough from the past to keep up with the demand for time travel. They’ll have enough to supply energy to the moons, but not enough to keep making jumps to the past.”

Graham nodded. “Saving them from themselves.”

The Doctor was at the controls, fairly confident that third dial from the left was for automatic recall.

“Alright, the TARDIS should be able to get us close to the docks for the tankers, near where we started. Well, provided they still exist.”

“So,” Yaz recapped, “We just need to enter a rapidly collapsing timeline that could make us forget what we’re supposed to be doing at any moment, steal some methane tankers the size of aircraft carriers, take them back in time and then…?”

“Destroy them,” Aimee supplied.

The Doctor swallowed, one of her hearts in her throat. She knew this was coming, but had left it out until the required moment. Still, she wasn’t convinced.

“Aimee, you don’t have to—” the Doctor began.

“Yes, I do. I’m good with ships. I can certainly make one self-destruct.”

“Doc,” Graham interjected, moving to Aimee’s side, “If you’re right, then the old timeline should be restored. She’ll be alive. Happy and healthy and back on her moon.”

The Doctor looked from Graham to Aimee, still apprehensive.

“In theory, Graham,” she said, “Time is unpredictable. It doesn’t always do what you expect. And that’s supposing all these calculations are correct. She has to prepare for—”

“For the worst.” Aimee gave the Doctor a cold, steady stare, steel and conviction behind her still puffy eyes.

“This is _all_ in theory, Doc,” Graham argued, “And for what it’s worth, I reckon you’re a lot better at maths than I ever was.”

The Doctor studied her boots, shaking her head slightly. “We’re still short. We have four ships we need piloted.”

“Well, I can do one,” Graham said, matter of fact.

“No—”

“And me.” Ryan joined Aimee.

“Me as well.”

Yaz made four, four defiant friends facing the Doctor.

“Absolutely not. You are travelling with me, and I say no. Too dangerous.”

“More dangerous than the Pting?”

“Turtle armies?”

“That four course meal on Sevinl?”

“You’re not in charge of us, Doctor,” Ryan said.

“We know what we signed up for,” came from Graham.

Yaz took a step towards her. “We’re doing this because we trust you. We’ll blow up the tankers, no causalities, because we’ll reset the timeline.”

They were faster than her, even as she moved to block the exit, her boots losing grip on the lighted TARDIS floor.

“See ya on the other side, Doc,” Graham smiled at her, the last through the door.

“No!”

Her words were lost as they left her alone in the TARDIS, her world within safe from ravages of time, but her friends without.


	5. act v

The Doctor watched the four tankers lift off from the docks, the TARDIS hovering midair as they zoomed past her. The surface below remained inhabited, but sparsely, with entire neighborhoods gone. The large industrial site that was United Moon Utilities still chugged away. 

She examined the scene, white knuckles gripping the doorframe to the TARDIS. There was little she could do. She should have stopped them, locked the door to the TARDIS or volunteered to go herself.

There were too many things that could go wrong—them not destroying the tankers in sync, Aimee disappearing before they could, the timeline jerking back to an almost similar but slightly different version, or, worst of all, she could just be wrong. Every time she redid her calculations, the numbers came up the same, but she still could have overlooked the tiniest variable, and this would all end in disaster.

The silhouettes of the tankers shrunk as they disappeared towards Tytus’ blue haze.

\--

Aimee had made the jump too many times to count, and she let muscle memory take over. It was the only way to quiet her brain and calm her racing heart. The cockpit of the tanker was not too complicated. The most challenging aspect was maneuvering something that size with limited controls.

She walked Graham, Ryan, and Yaz thru it on the radio.

Aimee could only see two of them, the fourth tanker in formation behind her. She checked the fuel levels, stabilized the field, and verified that everyone was ready.

She couldn’t remember the world she was supposed to be saving. On some level, though, she could feel it. Maybe it was some part of the universe that remembered the old timeline calling to her. Or maybe it was merely the sensation of being slowly torn out of existence. Something clawed at her gut, a longing for people and place she could not remember knowing. What had the Doctor said her sister’s name was?

Aimee couldn’t remember.

“This is for you, mystery sister,” she said aloud to the cold air of the ship.

She flicked the well-worn switch to the right of the controls and made the jump.

\--

The Doctor twisted the recall dial to follow them through time. The TARDIS lurched, not as violently as before.

She ran back to the door.

There was nothing there, nothing but a pale blue fog enveloping the boxy timeship as it drifted. The Doctor could see nothing, had no idea what was happening in this giant, icy methane reserve of the past.

\--

Graham had never felt a sensation quite like the time jump before. He was sure the Doctor would have a multi-paragraph explanation for how the TARDIS travelled through time versus the methane tankers, which would explain the nauseating result from the latter.

His ship brought up the rear. Everything about it was different than driving a bus, but he did know how to maneuver larger vehicles. It was simple; you both had more space than you thought you did, but never enough. Luckily, there was little to hit in the interior of giant gas planet.

That didn’t mean the ride was smooth. Turbulence invisible to the naked eye rattled the tanker, and Graham wondered just how old this ship was and how many jumps it had taken. It needed to stay together until they destroyed them in unison.

Potentially dying in this ship wasn’t necessarily what scared him. It was messing up, and missing the chance to right things and help Aimee.

He tuned back into Aimee’s voice over the radio. He was also monitoring Ryan’s channel, in case he asked for help.

His line had been silent the entire time, though.

\--

Ryan was still reorienting himself after the nerve-wracking jump.

The plan had seemed so simple in the TARDIS. The blue box had that effect, lulling you in a sense of security. Inside it, all of time and space seemed both at your fingertips and incredibly distant.

He wondered if the Doctor had ever stayed inside too long and found herself wary of the outside world again.

Ryan knew that feeling, that fear of harm, of rejection, that could await beyond the doors to your sanctuary. It was a fear that only seemed to grow the longer you avoided it. He didn’t know if he could put that sensation into words around fearless Yaz and experienced Graham, but perhaps the Doctor knew.

Out here, the danger was not just in his head.

He didn’t know what he was getting himself into with the ship. Piloting could have much more complex, requiring perfect timing and coordination. Luckily, it was more like driving a boat sized trolley with a bent wheel, encouraging it to move in one direction and learning its quirks when it didn’t.

Ryan took a deep breath and listened for Aimee’s cue over the radio.

\--

Yaz tripled checked the settings Aimee had provided, squinting at the dials in the dim light of the cockpit. She’d never driven a spaceship before, and it'd only been recently that she'd first set foot on one. The learning curve with the Doctor was steep and infinite, just how Yaz liked it.

“We got this,” she said aloud to herself.

Aimee’s tanker floated out the window to her left. Part of her felt bad for the way they had left the Doctor, but she would have fought them further, and the Doctor herself said they didn’t have much time. Still, Yaz could hear her mother’s voice in her head, lecturing her decisive, strong willed daughter. Yaz had never thought of those traits as anything other positive, a boon that had carried her through life and was intrinsic to the DNA of who she was. 

In moments like these, her will was absolutely needed. They literally had no time to lose. Already, there were no diamond storms in sight, only the thick gas around them.

Aimee’s ship disappeared into the haze, leaving Yaz to drift among the sea of clouds. She suddenly felt very alone.

\--

“Please,” the Doctor implored the colorful mist, “Please, let this work.”

She should have gone instead of them; she was here selfishly pining for them. They were out there, selflessly saving the planet. She leaned her head against the door, squeezing her eyes closed.

“I am begging you, universe, time, all that is out there. If you can do this _one_ thing for me, just please, please, please, let them live. Let them be okay.”

She opened her eyes, the unimpressed gas dancing before her. The edge in her voice cut thru the void.

“You know my power, universe. I’ve bent time to my will and rewrote the history of civilizations. I’ve taken on creatures from across space, and not just won, but had them call upon me, consider me a friend. And that is why I am here now. For once, in my long, long life, I am doing nothing. They—those kind, capable, brilliant humans out there—my friends—are doing it all. They are risking everything to save a world they only just met.”

Tytus’ interior could care less about her words.

“And I am here.” 

Nothing.

“Fine, I’ll say it?”

She turned her head to the heavens, her voice a whisper into the wind.

“I _need_ them. Please.”

Gently, from high above, a single sparkling diamond fell. It flashed as it caught the light, sending shards of light playing across the Doctor’s face. The light consumed everything, as white enveloped the world inside the TARDIS and out.

\--

It was raining.

The Doctor raised her face to the drops falling from the sky. No, falling from the ceiling. Green surrounded her, slowly coming into focus. The Green Place.

In front of her they stood. Ryan, Graham, and Yaz cringed as the drops smacked them, looking up in confusion to find the source. Aimee was next to them, hand tightly clasped by Paige.

“You did it!” A smile of relief broke across the Doctor’s face.

The hesitation from her friends brought a surge of doubt. They were back where the timeline first deviated, and the possibility was very real that the Doctor alone would remember what had transpired. Everything since the moment Paige first brought them to The Green Place could remain a lone thought for the Doctor, an adventure for one.

Yaz’s face opened into a breathless smile. “We did, didn’t we! We flew a methane tanker, exploded it, and now we’re here!”

Ryan smirked as well, shaking his head slightly. “Every theme park ride is gonna seem lackluster after that. A proper wild ride.”

Graham folded Aimee into a hug. “You were amazing.”

“Well, breaking ships is my specialty,” Aimee replied.

“You all…” the Doctor said, looking between them, “You all remember?”

They nodded enthusiastically. Yaz stepped forward.

“It weird though. It’s like I remember what happened, but also I remember not remembering. I remember what was, but also what almost wasn’t.”

The Doctor made a face. “That’s time for you.”

“I don’t remember!” Paige looked up at them, her small face filled with confusion. “You travelled through time?”

Aimee squeezed her hand tighter. “I’ll explain it all, tiny Schubs.”

“Schubs?” Paige made a face.

“I guess some things have changed,” Aimee said.

“I think this world will be better off without Mani and his genius ideas,” the Doctor said, “Now, who’s for a nice cup of bopa?”

\--

The Doctor, Yaz, and Paige drank their bopa on the floor of the TARDIS. The ship hummed away, the interplay of light against dark on the floor a warm perch.

“You know,” the Doctor said, “I think we might need a bopa machine in here.”

“Absolutely not,” replied Yaz without hesitation.

“You sure I can’t come with you?” Paige asked, her voice small.

The Doctor shook her head gently. “You would be such a good traveler of the universe, Paige. And I promise you if you work hard and grow up just a little more, but not too much, there will still be worlds waiting for you to discover.”

The Doctor leaned towards her.

“But right now, between you and me, I think your sister really needs you.”

Paige nodded, understanding.

“Hey, Paige!” Aimee’s voice sounded from outside, through the open TARDIS door. “I think we got the thrusters working again. Come double check for us?”

Paige was on her feet, sprinting through the door to Graham, Ryan, and Aimee beyond. Now alone, Yaz knew there was something she had to say.

“Doctor, I…”

The Doctor looked up, and Yaz was stopped by those wide eyes, both innocent and knowing.

“I just wanted to say sorry.”

The Doctor was quiet, an enigma, as always.

“For putting ourselves in danger. It was the right thing to do, but I know that it wasn't fair to you."

Just once, Yaz wished the Doctor's motormouth was running and could give her at least a hint.

"Yaz, I just..." the Doctor began, taking an agonizingly long time to finish her thought, "...I just wanted to say thank you. For coming after me. In The Green Place. And for saving Tytus. And especially for surviving. I mean, never, _ever_ do any of that again. But thank you.”

“We’re here for you, Doctor. I mean, we’re here for time travel and diamonds too, don’t get me wrong. But we’re also here for you. We won't leave you.”

That was not true. Time caught up to everyone eventually. The Doctor could only nod, as Yaz took a sip of her bopa.

“Also,” Yaz added, “You could work on explaining things, instead of just running off into the night.”

“Oh, I am _way_ better at that than I used to be.”

Yaz understood. “Progress isn’t linear, kinda like time.”

“Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor said, a smile filling her face. 

“What?”

The Doctor didn’t have words yet for what she wanted to say.

“Nothing, just…good name.”

Ryan’s head popped thru the TARDIS door, interrupting them.

“Hey guys, we’re gonna take the newly rebuilt flying car out for a test flight. Wanna come?”

“Absolutely!”

The Doctor was on her feet, her hand reaching back to Yaz, who took it without hesitation. They followed Ryan out of the blue box, out for a carefree afternoon in Tytus’ soft, dim light.


End file.
